MONTREAL — A key Quebec student leader suggested Sunday that a tentative deal reached Saturday to resolve the often-violent confrontation over tuition-fee hikes might not make the grade when students across the province cast their votes on it this week.

Martine Desjardins, president of the Federation Etudiante Universitaire du Quebec (FEUQ), said Quebec Education Minister Line Beauchamp is not helping matters by gloating about how the government didn’t relinquish its planned tuition hike.

“She’s not helping,” said Desjardins, adding she doubted this is “going through right now.”

However, Desjardins said she will explain to students that this is a last-ditch effort to save the semester.

“This is about the best we can do,” Desjardins said.

“The response has not been very positive.

“But this is the only thing students will get from this government.”

Not only did it take less than 24 hours for the proposed agreement to hit some major opposition, but some students are now considering the possibility of raising their rebellion a notch and instigating an outright cancellation of the semester.

“It’s just an idea for now, but it would be the ultimate sacrifice — and a way of ensuring the strike continues even if it costs the semester,” said Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, spokesman for the Coalition large de l’association pour une solidarite syndicale etudiante (CLASSE), considered the most hard line of the provincial student associations.

As students continued their protest Sunday night, Nadeau-Dubois also said reaction to the proposed deal has been “pretty negative.” He said students believe there is some ambiguity about how much of the money saved will actually go into their pockets, and are worried about the composition of the committee overseeing university management, which would have only four students out of 19 members.

However, he conceded that the deal does “buy time” for students, as it provides a concrete tuition freeze for the fall semester, and it does improve loans and bursaries.

Whether the agreement is perfect or not, Leo Bureau-Blouin, president of the Federation etudiante collegiale du Quebec, believes it has come at a point that is critical — both to save the semester and in terms of volatility of the student movement. The movement has become increasingly violent, as evidenced by a serious clash with police on Friday at the Liberal convention in Victoriaville, Que., in which three people were seriously injured.

Bureau-Blouin said this was the most interesting offer yet from the government, but it was too early to gauge reaction to it.

The deal will be presented to student associations across the province this week and votes will be on an association-by-association basis, meaning some could vote to accept it and return to class while others may continue the strike. Many votes will be taken in the next few days.

The FEUQ said it will hold a special assembly on Friday to discuss the results reached by its member associations. CLASSE said it would probably have its results by mid-week.

None of the leaders are making an official recommendation on the agreement; they will merely explain the good and bad points of it and let students decide for themselves.

The tentative agreement, which was the result of a marathon negotiation session, proposes the creation of a provisional council that would review spending by universities, turning over the savings the council finds to reduce extra fees that students pay on top of their tuition.

For this fall, the offer calls for reducing those extra fees by $125 to offset the tuition hike of $125, while a permanent council is established to review university spending.

Daniel Zizian, director general of the Conference des recteurs et des principaux des universites du Quebec, said the onus will be on students to prove there is money to find in the system.

“They feel they can show substantial waste to annul this $125,” he said.

However, if by chance no savings could be found, the students would be expected to cover that cost.

“It will be a challenge for them,” said Zizian.

Desjardins has said the students have already identified savings of $189 million by proposing cuts to university spending on advertising, travel and excessive compensation to administrators.

She said she hopes students have confidence in their representatives to find those savings. She said the deal will allow students to finish the semester and then move to “Plan B” — being active in the next provincial election.

Some students are eager for the deal to be accepted. Shane Goldman is a law student at Universite du Quebec a Montreal and has been out of class for 12 weeks. He believes the agreement is “a solid compromise,” although he doesn’t expect all students to accept it.

“Some students are looking for a tuition freeze with no strings attached,” he said. “It’s going to be a tight vote.”

Even if the deal is passed, it’s not known if the semester can be saved at this point. UQAM and Universite de Montreal had plans to extend the semester until June 22, but that was contingent on students returning to class on Monday. Since that’s not happening, they will decide this week what their next steps are.

Since Friday’s violent protest, police said a total of 110 people have been arrested and there could be more arrests in the days to come. Six men have already appeared in court to face various charges in connection with the riot, including assaulting a peace officer and assault with a weapon.

Speaking at the close of a weekend policy meeting of his Quebec Liberal Party in Victoriaville Sunday, Premier Jean Charest said he would not call an election in the spring over the tuition crisis and that moving the party event out of Montreal was “the right thing to do.”

Charest was questioned by reporters on why it took his government so long to come to an agreement with the students. Beauchamp only summoned the students, administrators and union members to meet, in what proved to be a 22-hour negotiating crunch, as Liberal delegates and demonstrators were en route for Victoriaville.

He said the debate in Quebec about raising tuition fees went on for 20 years and his government made proposals three times in April, aimed at resolving the conflict. It never budged on the tuition increase, except to stretch the planned five-year, $1,625 jump over seven years, lowering the yearly increase from $325 to $254.

After indexing, planned to begin in the 2017-18 academic year, the total amount rose to $1,788.

“We did not turn a deaf ear,” Charest said. “We were listening.”

For successful negotiations “it takes two to tango,” Charest insisted.

Negotiations in April to end the dispute with the students ended after two days when Beauchamp expelled CLASSE for organizing violent demonstrations, an allegation Nadeau-Dubois denied.

Charest noted that Nadeau-Dubois had denounced the Friday night violence.

“Unfortunately he did not do it sooner.”

Montreal Gazette

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